


The Songs of Wolves

by sonderwrites



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Ew, Gen, Halloween, I have no idea how to write fluff, Kid Fic, Modern Era, One Shot, Plot Twists, Short One Shot, Spooky, so is this fluff? idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:15:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27291802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonderwrites/pseuds/sonderwrites
Summary: Tom's costume may keep falling apart and running away from him, but he still has hope that this year he'll have a proper Halloween.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Tom Riddle
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14
Collections: distractions 💬 halloween big bang 2020





	The Songs of Wolves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Caesarion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caesarion/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [Caesarion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caesarion/pseuds/Caesarion) in the [Distractions_Halloween_2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Distractions_Halloween_2020) collection. 



Tom pulled his Halloween costume out from under his bed. He’d carefully sticky taped together lots of bits of material to make this chicken costume. Silently, he attempted to slip it on, but to his great disappointment, the costume fell apart. He wanted to cry, but he didn’t, because he didn’t want his parents to know that he was awake.

It would have been so much easier if he had just bought a costume, but nooo, his parents didn’t let him celebrate Halloween because they didn’t want him hanging around ‘peasants’, which meant he also wasn’t allowed to buy anything Halloween-related.

Every year he would pretend he was going to bed, but instead he’d sit at his window, and longingly watch the other kids down in the street in their costumes and their little bags and things full of sweets. He didn’t know exactly what they were doing, but it looked fun, and Tom would give anything to be able to do it as well.

This year would be different, though. Instead of his failed chicken costume, he tore one of his sheets off his bed and cut some eye holes into it, then pulled it over himself so that he looked like a ghost. Next, he silently opened his window, and attached another sheet to it so that he could climb down to the ground.

Unfortunately, his ghost costume blew off, but at least he made it to the ground without being noticed. He ran after the sheet, running into a few kids and accidentally making them fall over and lose their sweets, until finally he reached it, a lot further away than Tom would have expected a sheet to fly.

It was stuck near the top of a huge, tall tree, and as Tom looked up at it, he got a feeling that he’d never reach it, let alone ever celebrate Halloween. The universe really wasn’t on his side today, like every holiday.

But then as Tom was circling the tree, trying to find a way up, he stumbled upon another boy about Tom’s age, wearing a werewolf costume, and sitting cross legged against the trunk of the tree. 

“Hello,” the boy said when they made eye contact. He looked at Tom’s pyjamas. “A very comfy costume you have there.”

“Well my real costume got stuck in the tree,” Tom pointed to the sheet flowing in the wind, only just holding onto the tree. “Do you know a way up there?”

“Of course.” The boy stood up, and walked around to the other side of the tree. After a second, Tom could see him right up where his costume was, and the boy knocked it off the branch.

The sheet landed in a clump nearby, and Tom quickly picked it up before it could blow away and put it on again. When he came back, the boy was on the ground again.

“My name’s Harry Potter, by the way,” the boy held his hand, which looked slightly disfigured, but Tom decided it must be part of his werewolf outfit.

“Tom Riddle,” Tom replied, taking the hand with a smile, though you couldn’t see his smile, as his costume only allowed holes for the eyes.

“Oh, you live in the manor up there, don’t you?” Harry nodded up the street to where Tom had just come from. “I’ve never seen you on Halloween before.”

“That’s because my parents have never let me do anything on Halloween,” Tom said sadly.

“Oh, well you can come trick-or-treating with me then, if you’d like,” Harry offered.

Tom didn’t know what trick-or-treating was, but he agreed anyway, and they began their descent further down the street.

Eventually, they stopped at a house that was decorated with lots of Halloween themed things, like some carved pumpkins, spooky fairy lights, and plastic skeletons and gravestones. They walked up the path to the front door, and knocked on it. After a moment, it opened to reveal a lady in a witch outfit and a pumpkin facemask. 

“Trick or treat!” Harry said happily. 

Tom paused, and then repeated it.

The edges of the lady’s eyes crinkled happily, and she gave them each a packet of gummy bears. 

Tom looked down at them with fascination, but then quickly ran after Harry, who’d already started walking to the next house.

A few hours later, they had a pretty nice haul. 

Tom sucked on a lollipop as they made their way over to the graveyard, which they’d both agreed would be the best place to eat their sweets on such a spooky day.

He spread his sheet out on the ground when they arrived, because he decided he didn’t need to be a ghost to eat sweets. He dropped their collection down onto the sheet, and they both settled down for their around-about-midnight picnic.

They shared sweets (and this one toothpaste which Harry took), and although they were getting a bit tired at this hour, the sugar high kept them bursting with energy.

Tom opened up a sherbet powder packet, and poured its contents into his mouth. At first he cringed, and decided he didn’t like this sour thing at all, but then he realised that once you get past the sour, it did taste pretty good.

“Like it?” Harry asked.

Tom nodded in response, and then quickly picked up another sweet. Sweets were good, he very much wished he’d been allowed to have them before, like Harry obviously had, but having them now was good too.

After they’d finished eating every scrap of sweets they had, they decided to play hide-and-seek around the graveyard. 

Harry was chosen as ‘it’, so as Harry sat on Tom’s sheet with his hands covering his eyes, Tom snuck off to find a good hiding place.

He hid behind a grave, and put his knees up against his chest as he poked his head around the headstone to check if Harry was coming. 

As soon as Harry yelled out, “ready or not, here I come!”, Tom wrapped his arms around his legs, squeezed his eyes shut, and hugged himself into a tight ball. But it didn’t take Harry very long to find him. Perhaps it was because Tom hadn’t played hide-and-seek much before, or because he’d never been to the graveyard, he wasn’t sure.

“Found you!” Harry exclaimed.

Tom humphed and got up. “How’d you find me so fast?”

“I smelt you,” Harry grinned widely so Tom could see lots of his teeth, and oh, were there some missing? Maybe he just had wobbly teeth, or maybe too much sugar really does make your teeth fall out. Tom nervously felt for his teeth with his tongue, and was relieved to find that they were all there

“How did you do that?” Tom asked sceptically.

“Because I’m a werewolf,” Harry said, and then did a little ‘awoo’.

Tom blinked at him, but then joined in on the howling. But after a bit, Tom got bored of it, and said, “okay, you go hide this time.”

Harry turned around to go, but then stopped. The blood drained from his face, so he looked more like a vampire than a werewolf now.

“What’s wrong?” Tom asked.

Harry was at a loss for words. He was just staring blankly at the gravestone. Tom, confused, joined him and followed his line of sight to the words engraved on the grave.

Harry James Potter  
2013-2018

“Oh, is that your ancestor?” Tom, who had no idea what year it was or even what year he was born, asked.

“No…” Harry said sombrely. “That’s me.”

“You’re a gravestone?” Tom asked innocently. “But I thought you were a werewolf!”

Harry’s smile flickered, but then faded again. “I fell out of a tree two years ago on Halloween and died, and every 31st of October since then I've come back as… this.” Harry waggled his arms sadly. “And then I disappear again. I’ve never spoken to anyone after my death except for you, Tom. And I think I’d forgotten I was dead just for a moment.”

Tom attempted to comprehend. Once he did, he said slowly, “so you’ll disappear when November comes?”

Harry was about to nod when suddenly instead his eyebrows knitted together. “Hold on… it’s already November, isn’t it?”

Harry stood on tippy toes and tried to get a look at the town’s giant clock just past the graveyard. 

“Oh wait, I can’t read clocks,” Harry realised, and put his heels back on the ground.

“Well when does November even start?” Tom asked.

“I think at midnight? And that must have passed already, right?” Harry said. 

He finally had a spark of joy on his face as he realised what this meant. Tom, however, did not realise the significance of it already being November 1st.

“You’re happy now?” Tom looked confused.

“Yes! Last year I disappeared when it reached the end of the 31st of October, but I’ve… stayed?” Harry looked around himself smiling.

“That’s weird,” Tom said. “Wait, did I-”

The clock tower bell rang, and in a flash, Harry Potter was gone, like he’d never been there before. Like he had been but a daydream.

“Harry?” Tom said quietly, and then much more loudly, “Harry?!”

Clearly, it hadn’t quite hit midnight before, then.

The let down was a very big blow.

After a minute or so, Tom walked back to his sheet and slowly dragged it all the way back to his house. He snuck back into his room, and curled up into a bread roll in his bed.

He had no way of knowing if Harry had ever existed or not, except for the aftermath of a sugar high that had come rolling his way, but he could have gone trick-or-treating on his own, right?

Except of course, when Halloween rolled around the next year. He wasn’t going to sneak out again because last year his parents had gotten suspicious of his holey sheet, but Tom could have sworn he heard a howl that sounded just like Harry’s.

And every Halloween since then, the night had been filled with two small boys singing the songs of wolves back and forth to each other.


End file.
